


Fools Give Themselves Their Own Warnings

by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Forehead Touching, Geralt Figures It Out Eventually, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, idiot boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/pseuds/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels
Summary: It takes Geralt over six months to run into Jaskier again, but only one month to hear Jaskier's newest song.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 129
Kudos: 1967
Collections: Geralt is Sorry





	Fools Give Themselves Their Own Warnings

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: https://letmetellyouaboutmyfeels.tumblr.com/post/612970471997276160/i-broke-my-own-heart-i-couldnt-stand-the
> 
> I couldn't leave our boys unhappy forever, so I added a second part and posted it here.

Jaskier’s gone by the time Geralt cools down. So’s Yennefer, but he didn’t expect her to stay. He doesn’t expect to see her around again, either, at least not within a year. Maybe by then he’ll have figured out how to fix this mess.

The dwarves, though, are happy to inform him that the bard got some comments from them and left, heading back down the mountain. “You’d have to walk fast to catch up with him,” one of them notes. “You’d think his feet were on fire.”

That’s… surprising, but fine. Geralt’s not going after him. He wants some damn peace and quiet. And no talk of destiny. Or fate. Or witches. Or children. Or anything else.

It’s about a month after that, he first hears the song. _But the story is this: she’ll destroy with her sweet kiss._

Looks like the bard got one more damn ballad out of their friendship, after all. Geralt tries to shut it out whenever he hears it, and especially tries to ignore the part of his mind that tells him the other bards aren’t doing justice to a sing clearly written for Jaskier’s richer voice. Jaskier likes to play with musical notes, likes to see how far he can stretch his range, but he knows the power of just singing something well. Most bards mistake it for an excuse to try fancy trills and leaps that end up cheapening the song, and their voices.

Not that Geralt really cares.

He can’t help but hear it, though, and puzzle over the change in pronouns. From first person to “you” and then back again. It’s sloppy. Jaskier wouldn’t have done that. Or, rather, he might have during a rougher draft, but he’s far too deliberate to purposefully leave in such an error. Did someone steal his song notebook?

It’s six months after that he finds Ciri. All hell’s broken loose on the Continent. Who knows if anyone he’s ever known or called ‘friend’ is safe. Triss, Eskel, Lambert, Jaskier, Borch and his child… any one of them could be dead, for all he knows.

Except Yen. He’d feel it, thanks to the djinn.

Getting Ciri to Kaer Morhen is his first priority. She can train as a Witcher there, and Vesemir will keep her safe. Then he can look for the others. For Yennefer, for Jaskier, for anyone else who might have survived the carnage.

They’re still two weeks out from the School of Wolf that he hears it.

The damn song, but this time, sung the right way. Sung by a voice that knows how to do it. The voice that wrote it.

And the pronouns are still the same. Not a rough draft, then. Deliberate.

Geralt sends Ciri into the inn, then puts Roach in the stables. He’s wary about leaving her, feels a string in his chest pull tight every time, but she can handle herself for two minutes in an inn. Long enough for the song to end and for Geralt to think of what the fuck he’s going to say.

When he gets inside, Ciri’s over at the far end of the bar, talking to someone. She’s got her back to the wall and face to the door, like Geralt taught her, all exits viewable. The person’s tall, dark-haired, a lute across their back.

Geralt’s heart squeezes like it’s in a vice.

The barkeep places some bread and stew and two tankards in front of Ciri and Jaskier. Jaskier nods at the barkeep, passes him some coins, then pets Ciri’s hair. Geralt’s never seen her let anyone so much as touch her before, and it occurs to him that while he’s been avoiding Cintra, perhaps Jaskier hasn’t. He was asked to play at the royal banquet, after all.

Ciri smiles, laughs a little as Jaskier’s finger lightly taps her nose, and then Jaskier’s getting up, sliding around her, moving for… for the back door.

Geralt’s not aware he’s moving until he’s passing Ciri himself.

“Geralt…”

“Stay here, eat.” He pats her shoulder and keeps walking. Ciri draws up her hood and does as she’s told.

Jaskier’s a few feet down the alley, wrapping a cloak around himself. Clearly preparing for a long walk.

“Going so soon?”

The bard turns around and Geralt winces. There are better ways he could’ve started this conversation. “Ah. Geralt. Fiona told me she’d found you. Glad you’re keeping her safe.”

“You know her.”

“I’ve sung her happy birthday every year except last.”

Of course he has.

“She’s a good girl,” Jaskier adds. “Take care, Geralt.”

He doesn’t even sound angry. It upsets Geralt in a way he can’t articulate. Not that he can articulate himself at the best of times. “You’re the only person I can yell at.”

Jaskier pauses. “That is… not the compliment you think it is.”

Geralt really, truly wishes they were doing this somewhere other than this stinking alley, but given his history with wishes, maybe it’s best there’s not a djinn around to grant this one. “Everyone else I… I have to be in control. I can be firm but I have to be polite. I have to hold my tongue. There’s only so much… I can let myself go. Otherwise I’m just confirming every… everything they say. That Witchers are brutes, they’re cruel, they’re callous. There’s a line and I can never cross it and it’s as if I’m in a straitjacket. But with you… I punched you and you kept walking with me, I yell at you and you yelled back, you once tackled me to the ground because I tried to pick up your lute. I could… get angry. And you’d… it was all right, with you.

“And then I went. Too far. You weren’t who I was angry with. But you were the only one… and I took advantage of your patience.”

Jaskier’s mouth hangs open, and for the first time since their first meeting, Geralt can see he’s struck the bard dumb. “I admit I didn’t expect quite that good of an apology. I thought there’d be more…” Jaskier waves a hand. “You know. Grunting. But thank you, Geralt. I accept your apology.”

And yet he still turns to go. It feels as though something is sinking into Geralt’s heart, a thin stiletto blade. “You’ll freeze if you leave now.”

“I’ve learned how to care for myself. I wasn’t always with you, all those years. I’m quite capable of finding my own way.” Jaskier’s smile isn’t angry, isn’t bitter, and yet it’s not _right._ “I’ll see you around, Geralt.”

“Why. You have no reason to leave.”

“Geralt. Please.” Jaskier smells like cold mint and crushed roses, like the earth after a long rain shower. Sadness. The bard’s never smelled like this before. “My reasons are my own.”

He really doesn’t know why he says it. But it seems he doesn’t know the reasons behind half the things he does. “Why do the pronouns change?”

Jaskier looks confused for a moment. Geralt clarifies. “In the song. The one about Yennefer. It changes.”

“Ah.” Jaskier looks away, and Geralt gets a brief smell of woodash. Courage. Doing something even though you’re afraid. Jaskier’s afraid of something, and he’s doing it anyway.

The bard looks back at him. Squares his shoulders like they’re at the start of a sword fight. “I’m surprised you hadn’t figured it out. I was far from subtle. Asking you if you ever needed anyone. Inviting you to go to the coast. I think I offered myself to you in one way or another at least a dozen times over the years. One loses count after a while.

“And I could never tell if you were aware and being… protective of me by simply not refusing me out loud, or if you really didn’t get the hint. And then with the dragon… I never could compete with her. And you must understand, Geralt.” Jaskier’s voice is firm. “I broke my own heart. I couldn’t stand the suspense, waiting for you to. You said hurtful things up on that mountain but they would’ve been hurtful even if I wasn’t pining like a knight in a stupid fairytale. I could’ve waited for you, and I know you would’ve found some way to make it up to me. So it goes. So it ever was. But I knew—someday you were going to break it, _really_ break it, and if just hearing those things when you weren’t even really rejecting me, when you were just—taking it out on me—if it hurt that much, I knew, I had to—I had to end it. So I took care of it myself.”

Jaskier shrugs. “Maybe it’s that I’m more impatient. But I imagine even immortals get tired of waiting after a while.”

Geralt has heard the song enough times by now that he can recall the lyrics almost without thought. _If this is the path I must trudge, I welcome my sentence._

“It’s not about Yennefer and me. It’s about you.” Jaskier, watching Geralt, watching Geralt and Yennefer. _Tell me, love, how is that just?_

“I had to get it out of me somehow. It’s what artists do.” Jaskier still sounds more nonchalant than Geralt would like, as though this feeling is an old war wound that Jaskier’s grown used to. “As I said, Geralt. I did it. You would have apologized and kept being my friend. This is my choice. Please look after… Fiona.”

Geralt doesn’t know what to say. The world is still spinning beneath his feet.

Jaskier nods at him, once, and the smell of sadness is so thick that the chill of it seeps into Geralt’s bones, and then the bard is walking away.

_Give to you my penance,_

_Garroter, jury, and judge._

* * *

Jaskier doesn't expect to see Geralt until the snow thaws, at least. Winter's only just beginning, but he knows the Witcher's habits. Kaer Morhen is the safest place for Witchers, and it's the safest place for Cirilla. They can hide there for the next few months as the world comes to a standstill.

Normally he'd find himself a court to hole up in, but he's thinking maybe it's time to go home. Not to Lettenhove, gods no. He'd rather be hanged, drawn, and quartered than go back there. But to Oxenfurt. The first place that was really _home_ to him. The only place to which he keeps returning.

There was a person to whom he kept returning, full of eternal, useless hope, but… well.

How many times had he dropped a hint, hoping Geralt would pick it up? How many times had Geralt failed to? And yet Geralt had let Jaskier closer than anyone else, even Yennefer. The sorceress, as far as Jaskier knows, never bandaged Geralt's wounds or saw him in the grip of a potion or… saw Geralt at his messiest, in other words. Geralt always wanted to be at his best for Yennefer. But he let Jaskier see the raw spots, and Jaskier had thought that meant that maybe…

But it's time to move on. It's been time for a while. It's cruel, he knows, to reject Geralt's friendship. The look on Geralt's face in the alley as Jaskier walked away haunts him. Geralt looked like someone had cut Roach down, or taken Renfri's brooch away from him (and does Yennefer know about that, about the brooch and the girl it belonged to, Geralt's greatest regret, the girl who inspired Jaskier's song _The Black Blood Princess_ , the one he only sings for children or when it's just him and Geralt around the campfire). He looked like Jaskier had hurt him, and Jaskie regrets it, he _does,_ he doesn't want to take anything away from Geralt, but gods, he also can't keep on like this, either. Wanting. Weak.

No matter how much he sings the song, he can't get it out of him. The ache.

When Geralt's hurting, he retreats, like a wounded animal, so Jaskier doesn't expect to see him, really. Their paths will cross again, he's sure. It's inevitable. But it will be brief. Hopefully cordial. Friendly. But they can't travel together. It can't be how it was.

To his surprise—no, to his shock—he sees Geralt barely two weeks later.

Well, to be fair, he sees Yennefer first. She appears at the bar while he's singing in the tavern, and he knows that she portaled in from somewhere. Why she should be here, he doesn't know, and it's stupid of him beyond all belief, but he approaches her when his singing is done.

"Should I be flattered?" he asks, signalling the barkeep for a drink. "Or penning my will?"

Yennefer's enchanted her drink to be wine. Of course she has. "I'm not here for you. Where's Geralt?"

"How should I know?"

"I can find him when I want to. Thanks to the djinn." Yennefer's voice is bitter but also tired, and Jaskier takes a second look. "He's here. Or will be, shortly."

She's holding herself differently, he realizes. Carefully. Like she's injured. Her hands move stiffly. Her fingers seem to have trouble curling around her cup. When she swallows, she winces.

Yennefer's the most powerful person that Jaskier knows. He can't think of anything capable of injuring her. "Are you—are you all right? Are you well?"

"I will be." Yennefer clearly doesn't want to talk about it. "I need to find Geralt. I don't know why, I just… do. But I've left some… people dear to me in a precarious place. I have to go back to them. I can't stay long."

Yennefer has people dear to her? The world is truly full of surprises. "Well I last saw him two weeks ago, headed for Kaer Morhen, which is opposite from here, so…"

The door swings open a little more violently than necessary, and Geralt strides in.

Yennefer raises her glass at him. Jaskier wants to disappear into the floor in a way he hasn't since he was fourteen and fumbling his way through giving his first crush a poem he'd written her.

Geralt spies them—or, rather, he spies Jaskier. His eyes do that shift that happens, sliding from yellow to gold, almost like they're glowing, and he strides over. Jaskier's not sure that Geralt knows his eyes do that. He's not sure that anyone else has even noticed it. Except perhaps Yennefer. Jaskier used to think it meant something—that Geralt's eyes would do that around him. Now he doesn't know.

"Djinn magic's a bitch but it's not inaccurate," Yennefer notes, and then Geralt's up in Jaskier's space and Jaskier wants a dragon to land on the roof. Or a Nilfgaard century to march into town. Or the drunks in the corner to set the tavern on fire. _Something._

"Yen." Of course Geralt addresses her first. "You're okay."

"Despite the best attempts of others." Yennefer stands. "I can't stay. Triss is still unconscious, Sabrina can't get out of bed, and Tissaia's too exhausted to defend them if they're attacked while I'm gone."

"Triss?" Geralt looks alarmed. Or, well, he looks alarmed by Geralt standards, which is mildly interested by anyone else's standards.

"Fire," Yennefer says, her voice grim and her face twisted with fury. "Bastards."

"I was going to ask you to Kaer Morhen." Geralt's gaze flicks to Jaskier, then back to Yennefer. "I have my… someone I think you'll want to meet. I think she wants to meet you, too."

"I can portal there."

"That's not possible at Kaer Morhen. Only those who have been shown the way can find it on their own again."

"We're bound together by a djinn. I can portal there." Yennefer finishes her wine. "Tell her that I want to meet her."

Something in Yennefer softens when she says that, and Jaskier realizes that it's hope. Cirilla, Geralt's child surprise, could do with some magical training. She could do with a mother, as well. Perhaps Yennefer will finally get a child after all.

Yennefer nods at Jaskier. "I like the song, by the way. Even if it's not particularly flattering."

She walks out the door, and Jaskier doesn't need to follow to know that she's gone.

And it's just him and Geralt.

"Well, glad I could sit here awkwardly for that conversation." The barkeep has set a dram in front of him at some point, although it takes until now for Jaskier to notice it. He grabs it and downs as much as he can. _So tell me, love, tell me, love, how is this just?_ "Enjoy the winter, Geralt."

Geralt's hand settles on Jaskier's shoulder. It's tentative, in a way the Witcher has never been before. Geralt manhandles Jaskier constantly, and he would let Jaskier manhandle him right back. They yank, pull, punch, grab, hold, and tackle each other like they're wolves at play. But now Geralt's touching him like Jaskier's made of spun glass. "I meant both of you."

"What?"

Geralt looks angry, which most people (including Jaskier, once upon a time) would think meant Geralt was angry at them, but what it really means is that Geralt is upset with himself, with _words,_ trying to turn his thoughts into something he can say out loud. "I came here to find both of you. I couldn't track Yen. She wasn't anywhere. But I could track you. So I did. Hoped I'd run into her along the way. I meant… when I spoke earlier, I want to take both of you, to Kaer Morhen."

Kaer Morhen. Jaskier was only there once, when Geralt instructed Jaskier to come with him at the very beginning of winter one year. _I need to show you the way,_ he'd said. _Only those who have been shown it can find it on their own later. If you're ever in danger, you can come here. Vesemir will know you're with me._

Jaskier hadn't known how to tell Geralt, at the time, what it had meant to him. He'd written a song, though. About a wolf's pack. Seems it's all he knows how to do—pour his feelings for Geralt into songs that everyone likes and nobody understands.

"Are you sure you've got all your marbles?" he asks. The air feels charged, like it's just before a storm breaks. _Longing and heartache and lust._

"Jaskier." Geralt's grip tightens, just for a moment. "I didn't know. You can't—I couldn't answer when I didn't know you were asking. I couldn't—you never gave me a chance to respond."

His heart perks up its ears, like a weary old dog that's been waiting for master to return home from war. He's so pathetic, even now. Still hoping. Weak and wanting.

Geralt looks around. "You finished for the night?"

"Yes."

"That ale paid for?"

Jaskier nods.

Geralt's grip shifts from his shoulder to the back of his neck. It's still far more gentle than usual. Generally the Witcher just hauls him by the collar like a naughty kitten but now, it's guiding. Like—Jaskier can't even let himself finish the thought.

But he lets Geralt guide him up out of his seat. They're of a height, so it's the easiest thing in the world for Geralt to press their foreheads together. Jaskier knows the Witcher can hear his heartbeat, the tremulous vibrations of it, like a frantically plucked lute string. Geralt's hand is warm and grounding on the back of his neck, but the Witcher's breathing is a little shaky. Like underneath, he's just as full of nerves as Jaskier.

"Is this an answer?" he asks. His voice cracks even though he's whispering. Yennefer's not the only one with a current, not the only one who pulls people in, and he's so close to drowning he can taste the saltwater.

"I'm not kissing you in front of everyone," Geralt grumbles, like he's put out. Jaskier's not surprised. Geralt is not the sort of person to go in for public displays of affection. "But if you want me to put a finer point on it, the stables looked pretty empty."

Jaskier reaches up, as though his hand is not his own, as if it acts of its own accord, and he mirrors Geralt's movement, wrapping around the back of Geralt's neck, holding on—not tightly, but with care.

Geralt's breathing gets deeper, more even. Steadier.

"Come with me to Kaer Morhen," he says, a third time, because that's how it always is in fairytales. Three sisters, three trials, three gifts from the fey. A question asked thrice must be answered honestly. A request given three times must be honored. "Come with me, and stay."

 _I welcome my sentence._ "Yes."

Geralt's eyes glow gold.


End file.
